Michael Russo has covered the National Hockey League since 1995. He has covered the Minnesota Wild for the Star Tribune since 2005, after 10 years of covering the Florida Panthers for the Sun-Sentinel. He uses “Russo’s Rants” to feed a wide-ranging hockey-centric discussion with readers, and can be heard weekly on KFAN (100.3 FM) radio and seen weekly on Fox Sports North.

Wild's Bulmer to be assigned to the Houston Aeros

With Kelowna eliminated from the Western Hockey League playoffs, Brett Bulmer, a second round pick in 2010 who played nine games with the Wild earlier this season, will be assigned later today or tomorrow to the Houston Aeros for the remainder of the season and the playoffs.

He would be eligible to play in the Calder Cup playoffs because he's a signed junior player.

The feisty, good-skating, hard-nosed forward scored 34 goals and 62 points in 53 games for the Rockets this season and had 93 penalty minutes and 19 multi-point games.

The Wild project him to be a power forward. The Wild can only recall Bulmer if it has another emergency at forward. It is without an extra forward and has five games left this season. However, if it recalls him and he plays in a game, it would burn the first year of his three-year deal.